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<title>i’d live and die for moments that we stole (on begged and borrowed time) by azulaacelesbian</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100641">i’d live and die for moments that we stole (on begged and borrowed time)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaacelesbian/pseuds/azulaacelesbian'>azulaacelesbian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ambiguverse fics [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, F/F, Forced Marriage, Gen, Infidelity, Lesbian Yue (Avatar), Not tagging sukka or maizula bc I just namedrop lol, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some light suicidal idealation, Song: Call It What You Want (Taylor Swift), Song: ivy (Taylor Swift), Yue (Avatar)-centric, Yue - Freeform, ambiguous time period, ambiguverse fics, but not that much but I’m tagging it to be safe, yuetara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:26:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30100641</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaacelesbian/pseuds/azulaacelesbian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>‘someone will remember us i say, even in another time’<br/>-sapphos, circa 630-580 bc</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hahn/Yue (Avatar), Katara &amp; Yue (Avatar), Katara/Yue (Avatar), very light mention of sokka &amp; Katara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ambiguverse fics [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2289227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i’d live and die for moments that we stole (on begged and borrowed time)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello!!! this is my first yuetara fic I’m posting (but not the first I’ve written lol) and I hope you enjoy it bc I worked very very hard on it. It’s very short and I don’t think I’m doing a part two so choose how you want the ending to continue lol. Thanks for reading!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>How’s one to know? I’ll meet you where the spirits meet the bones, in a faith forgotten land.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>Age 18</strong>
</p><p>Yue steps out of her front door at 10 am, as she does every weekday. Hanh has left for work and she is alone at home once more.</p><p>A basket in her hand and a name in her heart, she travels through the forest to the graveyard at the center of it.</p><p>The moss covered the buried stones, blurring out the names and reminding her that someday this will all be forgotten.</p><p>Sitting down, Yue can’t help but to get lost in her own head-is this infidelity worth the risk?</p><p>She hasn’t had a day free from these thoughts since the first time her lover (the real one, not the man forced upon her at the ripe age of 16) took her hand and pulled her close.</p><p>He’s going to kill her, Yue thinks. And he’s going to kill me too if he finds us out. So she sits and wonders what the helk she was going to do until Katara approaches, hugging her shoulders from behind.</p><p>“Katara!” She says, and blushes as if they haven’t been together for a year now.</p><p>“I missed you,” Katara told her, leaning their foreheads together. And Yue just melts, because how is she supposed to end the only thing that makes her happy?<br/>
The hand that holds her through the worst of it?</p><p>—•—</p><p>
  <strong>Age 19</strong>
</p><p>All Yue wants to do is see Katara.</p><p>She’s stuck in this metaphorical cage, walking around with Hanh at a party much too crowded. It’s a classy event- girls in nice dresses, boys in suits-and they’re all drinking champagne from glass cups, dancing away but Yue just feels so trapped.</p><p>He’s talking to some partner from work now, so she slips away and searches for her lover, her beautiful and deep dark blue eyes that had always shone at her since they were 15 and just met.</p><p>Yue finds her not much later, and clutches Katara’s wrist. “Why do you do it?” Yue asks, unsure where she’s going with this. “Why do you keep coming back? I can’t leave him.”</p><p>But Katara seems to know, and looks her right in the eye and says “Because I love you. And I don’t know what else I can do.”</p><p>They exchange no words.</p><p>Katara just holds Yue close as she cries in an empty hallway of some strangers house, and Yue silently curses her for being so loyal and so...perfect.</p><p>She’s everything Yue is not.</p><p> </p><p>—•—</p><p>
  <strong>Age 20</strong>
</p><p>They’re sitting in her house and Yue can’t help but feel dirty.</p><p>She’s drinking her husband’s wine and wearing her wedding ring while someone else kisses her face.</p><p>But part of her feels good about it, too- part of her feels like this silent rebellion is all she has against Hanh.</p><p>Oh, how Yue despises him. Hates how he went to her father and begged for her hand, hates how her father didn’t even ask her what she wanted when he agreed to a wedding.</p><p>She hadn’t been free in 4 years- almost half a decade now Yue’s been bound to a man she doesn’t love.</p><p>“What do you think he’d do if he came back from his trip early?” Katara asks quietly.</p><p>To be quite honest, Yue had no idea. It’s not as if she’d ever had a real deep conversation with the wretched man. But she did know he had a temper to rival her fathers- so it couldn’t be good.</p><p>“He’d light a match and watch the house burn with us in it,” she says hoarsely, leaning onto Katara’s shoulder.</p><p>They’re quiet again- they seem to be quiet a lot recently. As they’re getting older, the reality of the situation is sinking in.</p><p>Katara cannot leave Yue and Yue cannot leave Katara. But Yue cannot leave her husband either. They’re trapped in a vicious circle, and neither is happy to be in it.</p><p>Another moment passes and Yue idly thinks about another way to end this circle, a way to end everything, but shoves it away. She still has much to live for.</p><p>“Ask me to run away with you.” Katara says out of nowhere.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Ask me to run. We can go wherever. Just leave him behind, back a bag, come to my door and let’s just run.”</p><p>“Where would we go? I’d have nothing, my father and Hanh control my savings. We’re trapped.”</p><p>For only a second Katara hesitates. “We’d live with my brother and Suki. They just bought a house in the countryside, right after their wedding. We can live with them til we get on our feet and find somewhere else.”</p><p>“We can’t just invade your brother's hospitality like that! It’s not going to happen, Katara. We can’t just...run away.”</p><p>The crescent moon reflects on them through the windows and Yue holds in her tears as she heaves a breath.</p><p>And once again there’s silence.</p><p>—•—</p><p>
  <strong>Age 21</strong>
</p><p>It’s been a couple weeks since the women have seen each other now- Yue’s stayed inside her house and tried to wait for the pit in her stomach to fade, but it just doesn’t go away.</p><p>She isn’t sure what to do- ending things with Hanh would be impossible, but ending things with Katara would be pain like she’s never felt before. The other woman wasn’t only a beloved to Yue, she was also her best friend. And one of the only things keeping her afloat as she drowned in the waters of her own emotions.</p><p>But she also realizes things can not go on like this much longer.</p><p>She cannot continue sneaking to the graveyard to kiss over a grave long forgotten, watching ivy and roses grow on the side of the little stone house occupied by ghosts. It’s all just impossible, and sooner or later she was going to have to put it to the end.</p><p>She’s washing dishes and swatting her brown and white hair out of her eyes when the door slams open. Yue drops a dish in shock, quickly turning around to see who was there.</p><p>It was Katara- standing there in a simple blue and grey dress, chest heaving, hair thrown in a braided crown. She looked as beautiful as ever and that just hurt.</p><p>“Katara,” Yue starts.</p><p>“Yue, I love you. And I don’t want to stop loving you. And I know it feels wrong to you, and I feel that way too, but…” Katara sighs. “You need me, and I need you. And I don’t turn a blind eye when people need me.”</p><p>Tears stream down Yue’s face, dripping on the ground like rain.</p><p>“Katara, I can’t. I can’t leave him. My father-“</p><p>“Your father doesn’t matter, Yue. Do something for you for a change,” She begs.</p><p>“Let’s not forget who started this,” Yue says, shaking her head. “We were 17. It wasn’t long after the wedding and we were talking about how Mai had started dating Azula. I mentioned wishing I had a girlfriend or a wife instead of a husband- you already knew the marriage was arranged at this point- and then you looked at me and held me hand and kissed me.”</p><p>“Was that really 3 years ago?” Katara laughs shakily.</p><p>“It’s crazy, isn’t it? Just how fast things change…”</p><p>Katara takes her hands again, rubbing a thumb over the wedding ring absentmindedly. “I want to fight for you, Yue. But I can’t fight like this, in abandoned stone houses or in hidden hallways of ballrooms,” she swallows. “So I’m going to ask one more time, and that’ll be it. I won’t bother you again after that.”</p><p>“Will you run away with me?” </p><p>Yue only pauses a moment.</p><p>“...yes.”</p>
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